Most productivity blogs and books will teach you how to do more, to get more done, to be more productive.

I want to teach you to do less, to get less done, to be less productive.

Doing less is not about being lazy (though being lazy is a good start) — it’s about focusing on quality rather than quantity. It’s about getting off the hamster wheel of productivity, so that you can create something great rather than just being busy ...

In each case, the person produced less, but focused on quality. The impact of the smaller work was higher, and thus the time worked was better spent.

I’d argue that by focusing on quality, you could work less and still have a higher impact. I’ve done this in my life — by cutting back on my work hours, I actually get less done but have a higher impact.

The most guarded prerogative of every government is its legitimized monopoly over the use of force within its territorial jurisdiction. The second most important prerogative is its exclusive control over all its territory. By implication, governments therefore claim an exclusive right over the political, economic, and cultural destinies of the people under their control. If people may not voluntarily and peacefully separate from the state in which they live, then it is tacitly claiming ownership over them.

Of course, the most fundamental right of self-determination is the individual’s right to live his life as he chooses, as long as he does not violate any other person’s right to life, liberty, and honestly acquired property. In other words, the core principle underlying any free society is the right of self-ownership. The individual is not the property of the state, any collective group, or any other individual. Without this principle, freedom is unsustainable in the long run.

The classical liberals of the nineteenth century believed that individuals should be free to determine their own lives. It is why they advocated private property, voluntary exchange, and constitutionally limited government. They also believed that people should be free to reside in any country they wish. In general, therefore, they advocated freedom of movement. Governments should not compel people to stay within their political boundaries, nor should any government prohibit them from entering its territory for peaceful purposes.

What would at least assure the minimal political intrusion into the individual’s affairs, even if he found himself under a government not of his own choosing, was the reduction of state power to protection of life, liberty, and property in a social order of voluntary association and free-market exchange. In such a world the use of political power to benefit some at the coerced expense of others would be eliminated or at least reduced to the smallest amount humanly possible. Government, then, would be only a “night watchman” responsible for guarding each individual from force and fraud under the equal protection of law within its monopoly jurisdiction.

Many, if not most, of the ethnic, linguistic, racial, and cultural conflicts that we see would be ended or significantly diminished if this right of individual self-determination were practiced by nation-states.

Alas, neither the government of China nor other governments seem ready or willing to respect the sovereignty of their citizens, which individual freedom and self-determination require. We continue to live in a time when governments presume to claim ownership over all they administer, including the people.

Freedom-loving Americans have been on defense for far too long! Instead of reacting to problems, thus allowing the inevitable encroachments on our liberty for reasons of whatever the “crisis du jour” … It’s time we get back on offense!